I Would Not Suggest The Deprogrammed Wiki, Lots Of Miss Information There, But There Is Some True Stuff

In one of his books, Kantor offers insight at other facets of AvPD that exist beyond the DSM criteria, that are often overlooked (and aren’t easily explained by other disorders).

On “classic” avoidants (Type I):

“(…) profile of pervasive shyness and fearful isolation. Within this class, variations of severity exist on a continuum. Some of these individuals live by themselves or with their family, either staying at home and not socializing at all, or socializing only with a few selected individuals, attempting to meet people but having difficulty connecting as they try, but fail, to form sustained and sustaining relationships. Others form relationships that are only partially avoidant: limited in degree or of reduced intensity such as bicoastal marriages; serial monogamous relationships; or relationships that are stably unstable, dysfunctional because being with unattainable partners makes the relationships unlikely to come to fruition, or if they do, sooner or later, they are destined to dissolve.”

A fear of flooding and losing control of various impulses due to overstimulation (…) disturbing inner peace (…)

A fear of failure, accompanied by a paradoxical (masochistic) fear of success (…)

Self-criticism due to self-condemnation by a harsh, unforgiving, shaming conscience, causing one to become guilty over legitimate desires and ordinary (but to the avoidant extraordinarily shameful), interpersonal foibles (…)

Relational idealism consisting of a disdain for relationships that appear to be imperfect, originating in excessive expectations of oneself and others (…)

Covalent characterological features, including histrionic (oedipal) rivalry that buries the potential for closeness, intimacy, and commitment under competitive struggles with others—as Gabbard notes, “entailing an aggressive demand for complete attention… associated with a wish to scare away or kill off all rivals… [with the competitiveness] interwoven with a sense of shame” obsessive fretting about the correctness and propriety of one’s interpersonal actions (…) paranoid suspiciousness about the negative things others are, or might be, thinking; depressive alarmism and pessimism that nothing will ever work out as hoped and planned for and the worrisome fear that if all is not already lost, it soon will be; excessive “don’t make waves” passivity, accompanied by a paradoxical fear of passivity and so a need to be on constant alert and continuously active to assure always being in complete control of everything about one’s relationships; extreme dependence possibly leading to a codependent relationship with one person to avoid having to relate to any and all others (…)

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Excessive Defensiveness

Avoidance is not a static, but an active, dynamic condition—what Millon and Davis call an “active detachment,” that is, one with important defensive components. Sullivan describes avoidance as a “somnolent detachment,” the protective dynamism “called out by inescapable and prolonged anxiety.” (…) What is avoided is an allusion either to a temptation for the warded-off drive or to a feared punishment or both.” Therefore some observers, emphasizing how the avoidant inhibits important aspects of living to reduce (social) anxiety, suggest that the term inhibited personality could substitute for the term avoidant personality disorder. Avoidant detachment is made up of the following defenses, among others:

Identification with the aggressor. Avoidants create expected losses actively to handle the possibility of experiencing unexpected losses passively, for example, “I fear your rejecting me” becomes “I reject you to avoid being rejected by you.”

Masochism. Self-sacrificing, self-abnegating, and self-punitive responses are an avoidant’s way to counter forbidden desire. Avoidants commit a kind of social suicide to punish themselves for what they consider to be their unacceptable instinctual urges. They suffer now to avoid suffering even more later.

Repression. Repression is the avoidant’s way to detoxify anxious thoughts and feelings by suppressing them, then acting as if they no longer exist (…)

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Associated Characterological Problems

Obsessionalism. Avoidants are worrisome individuals (…) often rigid, inflexible people who, stuck in routine, have difficulty adapting to unexpected life changes. Also, ambivalent about relationships, instead of settling in to a given relationship, they do and undo it: attempting to relate, becoming anxious, pulling back, then trying again either with the same person or with someone different, ad infinitum (…)

Paranoia. Avoidants are hypervigilant individuals who fear something bad can or will happen to them (…) They take impersonal matters far too personally and see rejections that are not there as a clear and present danger, or actual attack. A difficulty with basic trust leads them to become highly skeptical of everyone, convinced that no one will show them any goodwill whatsoever, and certain that either they will trust everyone and get burned, or trust no one and get dumped (…)

Depression. Avoidants tend to be depressed individuals with intense negative moods (…) They hold the pessimistic view that when it comes to relationships, there is no sense even trying since there is little chance of ever succeeding. Depressive cognitions prevail (…) so that they readily come to believe that any sign of disinterest in them constitutes a turndown, a turndown a rejection, and a rejection an epochal tragedy (…)

And “counterphobic” avoidants (Type II), who are avoidants who unlike the “typical” ones, manage to form connections, albeit in turbulent ways.

Type IIa avoidants can generally maintain superficial, short-lived, relationships with people and the subtype, “mingles”, jump from relationship to relationship unable to settle and not minding quality.

Type IIb avoidants, “seven-year itch”, can form proper bonds with others but for a limited time, because they burn out or become disinterested as time passes.

Type IIc avoidants, have severe codependency tendencies.

Help for those who constantly apologizing:

So, I am what I like to call a ‘serial apologizer’, I have been known to get stuck inside a ring of ‘I’m sorry’ over things that are totally unnecessary (bumping into things, making too much noise, or even simply being even close to in someone’s way, etc). I have had pretty much every reaction to this habit of mine from kind to extremely rude. Some people have found it endearing, cute or a sign that I am just that polite. While other people found it to be attention-seeking, dishonest, awkward, or just plain annoying. It took me a long time to realize that none of these explanations are really true at all. After a pretty enlightening conversation with a friend in a treatment center, I realized just why I was apologizing all the time. She pointed out that my apologizing was because I was scared to upset anyone, or even take up space. I had never realized or been told that feeling this way was abnormal and that is why I decided to post about it, in hopes of helping others with this problem. 

So here’s a list of the things I have learned since the conversation:

Constant apologizing is a reaction to feeling or having felt that: you aren’t allowed to take up space, you shouldn’t vocalize your needs, you don’t have valuable input. This tick or habit is a direct response to one or several factors: high anxiety (whether social or otherwise), trauma (particularly at the hands of people you cared about), or low self-esteem.

Constant apologizing is NOT attention-seeking, rude, or necessary to be seen as polite.

A lot of the time the apologies is a preventive measure to protect you from rejection, conflict, or awkward situations. It’s actually a defense mechanism.

A lot of common reactions received from people who don’t understand can actually continue this cycle, or make it difficult to resist continuing the cycle.

So with that basic information, I am going to move on to some reminders (Bonus: if you change you to I these double as some pretty nice affirmations)

You do not need to apologize for taking up space. 

You do not need to apologize for making small, mistakes that haven’t hurt anyone.

You do not need to apologize for existing  

You are allowed to make mistakes

You are allowed to show emotions/vulnerability.

You are not obligated to apologize for being yourself or acting human.

Now on to some tips that are helping me overcome this habit (I still struggle with this cycle but I swear these can help out.)

Use positive affirmations to raise your self-esteem and relieve anxiety. (The ones above work and I have a post of confidence-building ones on this blog)

Try (when it makes sense) to use “Thank you.” instead of “I’m sorry” 

Examples:

“Thank you for understanding,” rather than “I’m sorry for *small mistake/ lateness*

“Thank you for making me feel so welcome,” rather than “I’m sorry, you don’t have to do that.”

“Thank you for listening to me. It’s nice to feel heard.” instead of “I’m sorry for being emotional.”

Be gentle with yourself for slipping up. It’s way more beneficial to be kind to yourself rather than self punish.

If you can try to talk to people in your life you feel comfortable/ safe around about the apologizing. 

“I struggle with apologizing all the time, I’m trying to change this habit but it can hard for me. I hope you can understand”

“I’m trying not to apologize as much. Can you give me a gentle reminder/code word when I do I apologize unnecessarily?”

For people who have loved ones who struggle with this habit

 Try to respond kindly with things like:

“It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize for *cause of apology*”

“You seem anxious. Is everything okay? Did something make you uncomfortable?”

“I am not angry or annoyed with you for making a mistake or taking up space. You are allowed to make mistakes”

Have a calm, understanding conversation about the pattern

Be respectful and understanding of the cause of this pattern. This isn’t meant to be a high-maintenance, guilt trip or annoying. In fact, it’s a direct result of being made to feel that way.

I hope this post is helpful for any fellow ‘serial apologizing’ or someone who loves or cares for one.

R

Hey, so definitely don't go into more details than you feel comfortable with but if you can, could you elaborate on systems forming pseudomemories because they researched programming? Like developing completely false memories of programming when they aren't, or?

Hey constellation!

To be completely honest, I don’t know how well I could do that because I’m in heavy denial for the memories I currently have. I often try to tell myself they’re not real/they are pseudomemories so that I can like…feel better, I guess. Lol. Iykyk.

The reason I said that is because of what I read when I looked into RAMCOA, including alllllll of the warnings that were given to me from other victims of RAMCOA and ignored them like a dumbass and researched anyway.

They told me it was super common for non-RAMCOA systems to get pseudomemories. I honestly don’t remember how they explained it, I apologize. Something along the lines of “if you hear about a trauma situation that vaguely seems like it could make sense you may jump to conclusions” sort of thing. Gonna do like a really basic example here:

If you have a phobia of spiders (common in anyone really) but you read about a trauma scenario involving torture with spiders you might be like “Oh GOD! I have a spider phobia! I must have spider related trauma!” And anyone can be good at running with an idea and overthinking and imagining all these horrible scenarios.

HOWEVER

This is not always the case. If you feel you have genuine programming or memories regarding them it’s probably best to NOT fuck around and find out and find a specialist that can treat that because if you poke the bear it can get hella messy. It’s better to be safe than sorry. It’s better to realize they are pseudomemories later than assume they’re pseudomemories and dig deeper to figure out the “real memory” and realize that IS the real memory and massively destabilize the system.

However! (x2)

I stand by my original reply to that one person that if you haven’t already looked into RAMCOA, Don’t. You will not find good things. Whether you have progs or not. It’s not a fun thing to read about.

TW on this next part for what progging would be used for, NOT detailed at all, just be aware that I will be talking briefly about CSA/MC/suicide related things.

Wanna add that not all programming is done the same. I sorta brushed past that in that last reply, but I wanna make it more clear: not all programmers are super skilled or have done it a lot to make a fully programmed system. This sort of thing takes massive amounts of work. YEARS of work. And the stuff that happens is usually massively fucked up. I can only imagine some people not involved in a literal organized cult who specializes in this stuff who try will give up for some reason or another, or may not do it “well enough” or may modify things they’ve learned from other proggers to fit their own needs. Programming/mind control is usually done to fit the abusers/proggers needs, which means one’s programming could be at the level of like “Monarch Program” shit or like, more simple MC/progging for sex-related tasks or compliance or suicide programs for protection of the abusers.

Hope that answers your question. DMs are open, I’m absolutely okay to talk about this stuff carefully.

-Dorian

Emotional Abuse

What is it?

Emotional abuse is "any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth." This is also known as psychological abuse.

Signs and Examples

Humiliation, negating, and criticizing

Name-calling and derogatory nicknames. Blatantly calls you “stupid”, “a loser”, or other insults. Maybe they use terms of “endearment” that actually highlight things you’re sensitive about and ignore you when asked to stop.

Character assassination. Includes the word “always” (always wrong, always late, etc.).

Yelling, screaming, and swearing in order to make you feel small.

Patronizing. Belittling you with mock pity.

Public embarrassment. Picking fights, sharing your secrets, making fun of you in public.

Dismissiveness. Can include snarky replies (e.g., “Who cares about that?”) and/or dismissive gestures (e.g., eye rolling, smirking).

“Joking”. Reacting strongly to your discomfort with something they’ve said with phrases like “It was just a joke”.

Insulting your appearance. Phrases like “You’re wearing that?”, or saying that they’re lucky they chose you because no one else would have.

Belittling your accomplishments. They may shrug them off, say they don’t matter, or claim personal responsibility for your success.

Putting down your interests. Suggesting your hobby is a waste of time, feeling offended that you’d do something without them involved.

Pushing your buttons. Repeatedly doing something that they know annoys you, ignoring your requests to stop.

Control and shame

Making threats.

Monitoring your whereabouts. Always needing to know where you are, maybe even showing up without notice to the place you said you’d be at.

Spying on you digitally. Demanding to have all of your passwords or making you have no passwords. Repeatedly checking your email, social media, texts, etc.

Gaslighting. Denying that specific events, arguments, or agreements happened. This can leave you questioning your own memory.

Making all the decisions or insisting that they make all the decisions. Controlling as much of your life as they possibly can.

Controlling your access to finances. Financial abuse. Making you have to ask them for money. Making you account for every bit of money you spend.

Emotional blackmailing. Attempting to get you to do things by manipulating your feelings. They may play the victim or guilt-trip you.

Lecturing you constantly. Making it clear they consider you inferior by listing out your mistakes and dragging it out as long as possible.

Giving direct orders. They expect you to do everything they say with no question.

Having frequent outbursts. Getting enraged that you didn’t or did do something, no matter if you knew to do it or not.

Feigning helplessness. Making you think they don’t know how to do something so you do it instead of them.

Unpredictability. Getting enraged one minute and taking you on a romantic dinner the next.

Walking out. This is a control tactic that leaves you absolutely helpless. Parent/partner leaving an outing without you. Employer walking out in the middle of a meeting.

Stonewalling you. During an argument or disagreement, they shut down and refuse to respond to you.

Accusing, blaming, and denial

Jealousy. Accusing you of flirting/cheating or insisting that if you loved them you would spend all your time with them.

Using guilt. Guilt-tripping you into doing things.

Unrealistic expectations. They expect you to meet every expectation they have set, no matter how unreachable they are.

Goading and blaming. Making you upset on purpose and then twisting the blame back to you.

Denying the abuse. On par with the gaslighting, will deny any inclination that they could do any harm to you.

Trivializing. Accusing you of overreacting or misunderstanding when you tell them they’ve hurt your feelings.

Blaming you for their problems. When things go wrong, they always blame you.

Destroying and denying. Destroying your belongings and then denying that they did it.

Emotional neglect and isolation

Dehumanizing you. Making you feel inferior or subhuman.

Keeping you from socializing. Changing plans or begging you not to go out with friends.

Invalidating you. Not caring about your needs, boundaries, and desires, and making you feel bad for having these things.

Trying to come between you and your family. Telling family you don’t want to see them, making excuses as to why you can’t make it to family functions, telling you your family doesn’t care.

Using the silent treatment. Ignoring your attempts at conversation.

Withholding affection. Refusing to have contact with you if you offend them.

Shutting down communication. Waving you off, changing the subject, or ignoring you when you want to talk about something.

Actively working to turn others against you. May tell others that you’re lying, having a psychotic break, or having an emotional breakdown.

Denying support. When you need emotional support they shut you down, tell you to deal with it, and/or insult you.

Interrupting. Getting in your face and/or taking away whatever you’re doing to make you acutely aware that your attention should be on them.

Disputing your feelings. Whatever emotion you’re feeling, they insist you shouldn’t be feeling like that.

This is not a comprehensive list.

These signs of abuse are the same as the signs of “narcissistic abuse” which are paraded around the internet. “Narc abuse” people fuck off.

SOURCE

How to Recognize the Signs of Emotional Abuse - Healthline

Hi, I noticed your post explaining HC-DID, and I was wondering more about sidesystems? And hoping for some help on how to label ourselves.

With us, we refer to what is basically two systems within the body as a “front system” and “back system”; The front system has had a lot of known alters, within the hundreds, but none of them had any knowledge of any RAMCOA trauma until recently when we discovered what it was, and triggered a lot of programs for ourselves. It was only after this that the back system started actually showing themselves. Their alter count is supposedly incredibly high, divided in a lot of subsystems. We’ve heard things about thousands..? However, our front system does not have thousands. But we feel like we’re equals. We feel weird calling ourselves a sidesystem just because we’re only learning of our RAMCOA trauma now. We’re the system that’s been stuck dealing with everything since then and we are just as important as all of the back system. But, can both of us just consider ourselves two systems within one body and call it a day? Or would that be strange? Any extra information you have on sidesystems and subsystems within HC-DID would also be helpful. We hope to discover other terminology that resonates with us on this subject.

Thanks for your time :)

Honestly terms are just for using at your own discretion. Even if the way you function fits a specific term- you don't have to go along with it. Our what we thought was the "main" system turned out to be what we learned was a side-system. They have decided to use this term themselves but if any of them in it don't use it they'd be allowed to with no worries- just use another term- or not use it at all.

The sidesystem in our own system has been what we were aware of first and more often. We do see our sidesystem as equal to all our programmed/RAMCOA aware (formed in it organically) subsystems. Our main grouping which we consider a sidesystem also has a lot of subsystems within it. Sometimes things can get incredibly complex.

We also eventually found out about our own RAMCOA history because of triggered programs. It was pre-looking into RAMCOA in our case and more so happened because we were digging in our childhood already because of organic alters trauma. I'm sorry you went through all of that- those kind of experiences really suck.

Again you really have no obligation to call anything a sidesystem if you don't want to. Honestly I think the terms you're using as "front and back" can be really fitting and if they work for you? No problem using just that. And honestly yeah- I think it'd be reasonable to view it as just having multiple systems in one body. Hell we sorta do view it in that way ourselves.

As for extra information. I actually kinda want to make a post going over some structures that may show up in HC-DID systems. I think having something we can link back too in the future will be useful. Unsure when that will be out but I will begin working on it today at the very least.

Some explanations about dissociated parts and memory, information from The Haunted Self and paraphrased by yours truly.

Every part deserves to have their piece respected, even if it doesn’t seem to fit in neatly with the others, even if you think it’s weirdly shaped, even if it just seems scary. 

And remember: Puzzles are put together one piece at a time.

[Check out my DID/OSDD casually explained masterpost for sources and more infographics!]

What are some common consequences of being neglected as a child? source: r/emotionalneglect

Pete Walker identifies neglect as the "core wound" in complex PTSD. He writes in Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving,

"Growing up emotionally neglected is like nearly dying of thirst outside the fenced off fountain of a parent's warmth and interest. Emotional neglect makes children feel worthless, unlovable and excruciatingly empty. It leaves them with a hunger that gnaws deeply at the center of their being. They starve for human warmth and comfort."

Self esteem that is low, fragile or nearly non-existent: all forms of abuse and neglect make a child feel worthless and despondent and lead to self-blame, because when we are totally dependent on our parents we need to believe they are good in order to feel secure. This belief is upheld at the expense of our own boundaries and internal sense of self.

Pervasive sense of shame: a deeply ingrained sense that "I am bad" due to years of parents and caregivers avoiding closeness with us.

Little or no self-compassion: When we are not treated with compassion, it becomes very difficult to learn to have compassion for ourselves, especially in the midst of our own struggles and shortcomings. A lack of self-compassion leads to punishment and harsh criticism of ourselves along with not taking into account the difficulties caused by circumstances outside of our control.

Anxiety: frequent or constant fear and stress with no obvious outside cause, especially in social situations. Without being adequately shown in our childhoods how we belong in the world or being taught how to soothe ourselves we are left with a persistent sense that we are in danger.

Difficulty setting boundaries: Personal boundaries allow us to not make other people's problems our own, to distance ourselves from unfair criticism, and to assert our own rights and interests. When a child's boundaries are regularly invalidated or violated, they can grow up with a heavy sense of guilt about defending or defining themselves as their own separate beings.

Isolation: this can take the form of social withdrawal, having only superficial relationships, or avoiding emotional closeness with others. A lack of emotional connection, empathy, or trust can reinforce isolation since others may perceive us as being distant, aloof, or unavailable. This can in turn worsen our sense of shame, anxiety or under-development of social skills.

Refusing or avoiding help (counter-dependency): difficulty expressing one's needs and asking others for help and support, a tendency to do things by oneself to a degree that is harmful or limits one's growth, and feeling uncomfortable or 'trapped' in close relationships.

Codependency (the 'fawn' response): excessively relying on other people for approval and a sense of identity. This often takes the form of damaging self-sacrifice for the sake of others, putting others' needs above our own, and ignoring or suppressing our own needs.

Cognitive distortions: irrational beliefs and thought patterns that distort our perception. Emotional neglect often leads to cognitive distortions when a child uses their interactions with the very small but highly influential sample of people—their parents—in order to understand how new situations in life will unfold. As a result they can think in ways that, for example, lead to counterdependency ("If I try to rely on other people, I will be a disappointment / be a burden / get rejected.") Other examples of cognitive distortions include personalization ("this went wrong so something must be wrong with me"), over-generalization ("I'll never manage to do it"), or black and white thinking ("I have to do all of it or the whole thing will be a failure [which makes me a failure]"). Cognitive distortions are reinforced by the confirmation bias, our tendency to disregard information that contradicts our beliefs and instead only consider information that confirms them.

Learned helplessness: the conviction that one is unable and powerless to change one's situation. It causes us to accept situations we are dissatisfied with or harmed by, even though there often could be ways to effect change.

Perfectionism: the unconscious belief that having or showing any flaws will make others reject us. Pete Walker describes how perfectionism develops as a defense against feelings of abandonment that threatened to overwhelm us in childhood: "The child projects his hope for being accepted onto inner demands of self-perfection. ... In this way, the child becomes hyperaware of imperfections and strives to become flawless. Eventually she roots out the ultimate flaw–the mortal sin of wanting or asking for her parents' time or energy."

Difficulty with self-discipline: Neglect can leave us with a lack of impulse control or a weak ability to develop and maintain healthy habits. This often causes problems with completing necessary work or ending addictions, which in turn fuels very cruel self-criticism and digs us deeper into the depressive sense that we are defective or worthless. This consequence of emotional neglect calls for an especially tender and caring approach.

Addictions: to mood-altering substances, foods, or activities like working, watching television, sex or gambling. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician who writes and speaks about the roots of addiction in childhood trauma, describes all addictions as attempts to get an experience of something like intimate connection in a way that feels safe. Addictions also serve to help us escape the ingrained sense that we are unlovable and to suppress emotional pain.

Numbness or detachment: spending many of our most formative years having to constantly avoid intense feelings because we had little or no help processing them creates internal walls between our conscious awareness and those deeper feelings. This leads to depression, especially after childhood ends and we have to function as independent adults.

Inability to talk about feelings (alexithymia): difficulty in identifying, understanding and communicating one's own feelings and emotional aspects of social interactions. It is sometimes described as a sense of emotional numbness or pervasive feelings of emptiness. It is evidenced by intellectualized or avoidant responses to emotion-related questions, by overly externally oriented thinking and by reduced emotional expression, both verbal and nonverbal.

Emptiness: an impoverished relationship with our internal selves which goes along with a general sense that life is pointless or meaningless.

Reclaiming post!

hii I am going to be reclaiming the HC-DID term for programmed systems since the person that made it is an awful antisemitic conspirator.

HC-DID means "highly complex DID". It is a term for ramcoa survivors that were programmed to have DID. It exists because the experiences between a programmed system is different than those of CDID systems that aren't programmed.

HC-DID is NOT meant to be a trauma olympics term, it is just a modifier to differentiate the experiences that programmed systems have.

Does McLean Hospital Have Ties To MK Ultra?

Claims made, the evidence, the known facts, and the falsehoods.

CW/Brief: This talks about a government ran mind control project that took place in 1953-1973. Claims recently have resurfaced as a reaction to a contentious video that was released. This video was greatly contested by people with DID and professionals in psychiatry and psychology alike for it's poor handling of subject material and violation of ethics. This will not go fully in depth on the tactics used but addresses more recent claims about the hospital that originally hosted this video. There will be usage of words like torture. This also will mention a prolific case where the victim ended up becoming a terrible person- murder may be mentioned. This case was only brought up due to its prolific nature.

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Terminology used

RAMCOA: A specific subset of purposeful abuse, known to primarily be done by groups. Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse.

TBMC: Trauma/Torture Based Mind Control.

Mk-Ultra: A government run CIA project/operation meant to try and mind control agents and civilians alike. This has heavy ties to TBMC.

Syscourse: System based discourse that tends to happen surrounding plurality or multiplicity (a self-schema) and DID/OSDD-1 a dissociative disorder that often has the Alters be highly focused upon. Syscourse usually culminates in fights between those with "endogenic plurality" and "CDDs" (CDDs are known as Complex Dissociative Disorders) we engage in this on our main and mention it as it does tie into the sorts of reasons the claims surfaced recently.

TLDR; There are possible and reasonable claims that McLean plausibly could have had a hand in Mk-Ultra in the past. It is fact that they have ties to Mk-Ultra, by association with Harvard Medical. The ties do not by any means implicate them in any form of guilt. There is no evidence that McLean for certain ever had any involvement in the past, however it is plausible. There is absolutely NO reason to suspect the hospital currently in the year of 2023, fifty years after the project (if they even had any hand in it), has been closed. The resurfacing of this discussion happened due to victims of similar experiences (TBMC/RAMCOA) becoming triggered by the aforementioned video and finding this information out and not doing their due diligence to handle any of it with the care it deserves. This was not the time to bring this up, this is a separate discussion that should have never been tied to the video. The current way the claims and accusations are being handled and the fear mongering is a net negative both for this discussion and for causing unnecessary distrust in doctors who are there to genuinely help. Additionally there are false claims mixed in with the true ones, such as the claim that McLean continued to partake in horrific experiments until 1987, which has no source other than a known conspiracy theorist.

Full Post

We were planning to stay fully out of syscourse for a little while but seeing as things/discussions for RAMCOA got crosstagged as syscourse we ended up running into something that we want to thoroughly stamp out the idea of. To preface this, yes, we are a RAMCOA survivor. The full details we have stated ever are very minimal, we are purposefully hiding a shit ton of things. However what remains is the fact we are a victim of TBMC, our RAMCOA was more focused upon MC than any other aspect. As such we took a very specific interest in this situation. Feel free to tag this post as syscourse if you want, we do not consider it such ourselves as this pertains directly to a type of trauma.

There is actually a loose connection to be made between McLean hospital and MK-Ultra. McLean Hospital had ties to Harvard Medical, which has been purportedly linked to MK-Ultra. The one declassified governmental mind control project.

This dates back all the way to 1977, this is not the only claim of Harvard's involvement either. In fact anyone who is morbidly curious may know of a famous case very, very well. Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber. It is a known fact that this man was a victim of MK Ultra and experimentation by Harvard. This has been known for a very long time.

To be clear TBMC does not excuse murder. We as a survivor of TBMC ourselves are not a danger, however it must be recognized that in some cases people are not criminally responsible due to their mental functionality. This is similar to a case where someone pleads insanity- the actions are heinous and still were UNDENIABLY his doing. We are not saying he should not be blamed, nor are we making light of his victims. Explanations are not excuses.

Some minimal sources.

The Atlantic

Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber

A series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments may have confirmed Theodore Kaczynski’s still-forming belief in the evil of scie

Exploring your mind

The Harvard Experiment that Led to the Unabomber

Although he participated in a Harvard experiment and is extremely smart, Ted Kaczynski is now serving time in a maximum-security...

These are only one of many many articles, videos, deep dives, and talks about this situation and the irreparable damage that the way human experimentation in the USA has messed people up in more recent times.

If you had any awareness of the general situation surrounding these things you would realize the claims are predicated upon a long standing history of Harvard Medical specifically having definitive ties and accusations to ties with MK-Ultra. The accusations have not arisen out of thin air, this isn't a new claim, this has been brought up numerous times in the past. These claims came well before the current issue surrounding one man's horrendous presentation on DID- the DSM-4 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 4th Edition) even was made after accusations of Harvard Medical being tied to Mk-Ultra.

Harvard Medical spawned McLean Hospital

People are making an association and are wondering if this was one of the ways that Harvard Medical along with the CIA accessed victims. This wonder does however have no definitive answers from what we can gather and should not be treated as fact.

Additionally many people have reasonable and not unfounded fears that said practices never truly stopped. However, these for the current day and year, 2023 are unfounded claims. A reasonable fear or reasonable feeling still does not always denote truth in what is feared. It is reasonable for us to fear the Christian faith given our history, however it factually is not pure evil and can be practiced healthily. (Not a great comparison but we had to think of something)

The debunked accusations of specifically McLean hospital being involved was from 1987 in which a conspiracy theorist claimed McLean was still doing these horrific experiments and tortures. The thing that was disproven was that they had continued to be involved, not that they had never been involved. To our understand the difference in these two cases is that there is numerous possible claims that McLean may have been involved in the past but only one which claimed this from a very untrustworthy source.

There is currently no evidence to prove they were not involved. However there is also seemingly no evidence to prove Mclean Hospital were involved as well. Due to the connections in administration in that time period, it is reasonable to conclude that it is plausible that Mclean did contribute all the way back when MK-Ultra was active, just as much as it is reasonable to conclude it is plausible they did not.

Does this mean it should be treated as fact? No. But the RAMCOA survivors who immediately learn of these connections and assume the worst are having a reasonable emotional reaction when paired with what RAMCOA survivors like us have experienced. The feelings are reasonable, but the fact of the matter in many cases just seems to not be there.

By denying the plausibility you are plausibly denying the experience of victims who are still alive to this day. As such many people (us included) still feel weird about definitively saying that there is no chance this happened in the past. However we must be fully aware and acknowledge that there is not enough evidence of this being the case, therefore it is wrong from a factual point to say that they were involved.

Again, does this reflect the modern day?

Absolutely not. I would say that to our knowledge the majority of doctors at the hospital who are (especially) younger than their 50 are not involved nor should be implicated. Anyone who was a child when Mk-Ultra launched and/or concluded should be automatically removed from a list of possible perpetrators. Additionally it will only harm what we do believe could be good doctors who had no idea of these things, many people today are far removed from things like Mk-Ultra, many if not most may have had no awareness of the past allegations.

You can address the fact that worries or claims that McLean Hospital or Harvard Medical today are doing this as false, without fully denying the plausibility of a dark past. Especially when it comes to Harvard Medical.

(Side note, just because something came form another organization does not necessarily mean they did the same practices. Additionally, I would argue, given the history of government projects only those directly involved with the experimentation would be aware of what was occurring and not all workers even within the hospital).

We took it upon ourselves to look into it initially- we already knew about the Unabomber being an Mk-Ultra victim, we only recently knew he had ties to Harvard Medical. And yes, we have found a few claims that the specific hospital he was put in when tortured was McLean, but those have only been on articles that require one to sign up or buy fully access which we are not doing.

Please just try and understand why some RAMCOA survivors have reacted the way they have, do more than just look on reddit or see that one lunatic claiming McLean was continuing on Mk-Ultra in 1987. Because what many are doing is resorting to a long time form of systemic oppression against RAMCOA survivors. The default of calling all of them delusional and conspiracy theorists. It is not delusion to see something so similar to your experience and make a connect even if it is faulty, delusion is another mental health issue entirely.

Acknowledge how things can be emotional reactions, while also acknowledging the bits of truth within those reactions. We do not think that this being brought up in response to specifically the DID video is good- we think it creates fear and leads to fear mongering about hospitals and doctors. This is something that should be brought up and addressed in its own right. But the timing was poor, and the reasons behind it were filled and fueled with people who were triggered in a variety of ways and were not actually discussing it out of concern for the victims. (We are usually not big on what the motivations behind something are but when your motivations end up seeping through and possibly harming an important discussion it does become a concern.)

does RAMCOA always involve sexual abuse by default? We relate to some experiences of RAMCOA survivors but we don't feel sexual abuse was exactly the main focus of the abuse, in fact the sexual abuse we experienced was actually completely unrelated as far as we're away. feel free not to answer if you're not comfortable, we just can't seem to find a clear answer to this question anywhere.

100% No. CSA and SA are often a part of RAMCOA- a lot of people do experience it if they experience RAMCOA- however not a single one of the 3 types of abuse that it covers requires CSA/SA. We had this confusion ourselves for a while at first because we had no memory of CSA whatsoever- sadly we learned we were wrong on that front but even before we had learned we still were a RAMCOA survivor even without it. Hope this helps.